Nature Conservancy teaches New Haven kids about conservation

NEW HAVEN >> Four New Haven high school students gave up their cell phones, their friends, and their comfy beds, and headed this summer to spend four weeks in the wilderness, on a saltmarsh island in Oregon.

Their mission: to walk through the 187-acre island searching for an invasive species of grass.

They were sent there as paid interns by the Nature Conservancy, a leading conservation organization that runs a program for young people called Leaders in Environmental Action for the Future. The students -- all young women who attend either Common Ground High School or The Sound School in New Haven -- were chosen because of their ability to be leaders, their interest in the environment, and their ability to work with a team, said Brigitte Griswold, the LEAF program director.

It was not easy work.

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Ariana Rodriguez, 17, of Ansonia, said that the first hurdle was giving up her cell phone. "I'm not going to lie: I'm addicted to my phone," she said. "I'm always on it. Even if I'm not talking or texting, I'm scrolling through, reading things."

But Rodriguez, who attends Common Ground High School, was willing to give the phone-free life a try, and after a few days in the Oregonian wilderness, she said, she noticed that she still reached toward her pocket "a million times a day," seeking the phone. But now that she's back, she said, she's not as hooked on that little piece of communication hardware anymore.

The next big hurdle was figuring out how to live in a house with strangers -- three other students, a mentor and a scientist supervisor who was there to educate the kids about the work they were doing. In addition to working in the saltmarsh for seven hours a day, the girls also had to do their own laundry, do the grocery shopping, and cook all the meals.

"It opened my eyes," said Amber Fearnley, 17, of New Haven, a student from The Sound School, who had never been on an airplane and had never been away from home for such a long time. "I have much more of an idea of what it's going to be like to go to college. I loved it, especially after the first week."

The job the girls were assigned was to search the island for a very specific type of invasive grass, called spartina patens, which had been imported from the East Coast, and was taking over the native wetland vegetation. The island was divided up into grids, and each grid's tall grasses were to be thoroughly searched.

In the 25 days they were there, they found two patches of the spartina.

"Of course you don't want to find it," explained Rodriguez, "but then you're so happy when you've been searching and searching, and then you do find it."

The job then was to cover the patches with a special fabric, which would cause the grass to suffocate.

"We really felt like we made a difference," said Rodriguez.

There were plenty of challenging moments, the girls said, not the least of which was the task of walking through a marsh with tidal channels that couldn't be seen -- and then suddenly finding themselves up to their knees (or worse) in mud and water.

"It was funny to fall into a tidal channel," said Linnette Mendoza, 17, of Waterbury, a student at Common Ground High School. "We'd go back at the end of the day muddy and wet."

The Nature Conservancy has been running the LEAF program for 19 years, and this summer has sent 118 young people from some 11 cities to wilderness locations in 27 states, said Griswold.

"It's definitely not summer camp," she said. "They work hard. The young people tell us later they get a real sense of accomplishment, working with naturalists and scientists on projects that really need to be done. Frankly, without the paid interns, we wouldn't be able to get to all the work we need to do."

In all the years the LEAF program has been running, she said, there have only been three kids who dropped out and wanted to return home.

It's good for kids, and good the environment as well, she said.

"Studies have shown that extended exposure to nature with a mentor is the greatest predictor of whether or not young people will care about the environment and about science," she said.

In fact, of the LEAF alumni, 34 percent go on to major in life sciences, as opposed to 6 percent of the national average; 52 percent later volunteer for environmental causes, vs. 3 percent of the national average, and 73 percent rank global warming as "extremely serious," compared with 37 percent of their peer group nationally.

Rodriguez said she gained a new understanding of nature out there in the wilderness. But perhaps the main thing she came away with was an appreciation for what it means to do work you believe in. "I got to see people working who really, really care about their jobs -- and I know that no matter what career I go into, that's how I want to feel about going to work every day," she said.